Captain's Log

Feeling Like The Captain:

I've felt like Captain Jack Sparrow for days now, having spent enough hours on the water last Thursday and Friday -- those bright, surgy days -- to absorb those rhythms and motions! I love that feeling.

By feeling like Captain Jack, I mean feeling wobbly and tilty and one with the sea.  He had the Black Pearl, and I have Sofia

 Log Jam:  While kayaking last Thursday, I was startled by a shape in the water, by a long brown shape, that I took to be a mature sea lion that I was suddenly much too close to.  Not a harbor seal, for the shape was too too long and broad, but a sea lion, and at close quarters, a full-grown sea lion could do plenty of defensive damage.  That brown shape was just a log, however, a carved-off tree-portion about six or seven feet long drifting in the cove.

Now, having been surprised by that log, that shape, I back-paddled furiously and avoided any collision.  Which would have been the right action, particularly if it had been a marine mammal.  Still, I am struck by how much my startled response came before any rational sense of "Hey, that might be a sea lion, so avoid hitting the creature"; and, from reading and teaching Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival, I am well aware of the dynamics of amygdala trumping hippocampus, of emotional reaction before rational decision, but still I would like to have not been so afraid of a shape.  Haven't I trained for these situations?  Haven't I paddled and visualized enough to respond more thoughtfully?  Or, at least less fearfully?  Was this a failure of grace?   Or should I appreciate how much my core self, the body/emotional self, worked to take me out of (perceived) danger?

Brendan Kennelly: "Remember What Marina Said?"

REMEMBER WHAT MARINA SAID?

You'll never do it.

You know you'll never do it.

Admit you know you'll never do it.

The teacher said so.

The doctor and the priest agreed.

They know you were born to fail.

So did everyone at the Cake Sale

And the Book Sale.

Xavier Mulligan TD, not famous for his candour,

Told you to forget it

As did everyone at the Annual General Meeting

Of the Ballyspanner Football Club.

Wise Tynan swears it's totally beyond you.

Wise Tynan knows the story inside out,

He's got the whole thing sussed.

And when you say that you can do it

You fill wise Tynan with disgust.

And now, for the first time,

After long thought, and then some more,

Let me tell you what I've never told you before.

I who supported you

From the day that Clifford beat you

Up against the classroom door

For your stammering and your left-hand writing,

I tell you now, my friend of a lifetime,

You'll never do it.

Remember what Marina said?

Failure is your daily bread.

What's this?

I told you to lie down,

Cover your face with your hands,

Keep your mouth shut.

Be seen, I said, not heard.

What's this?

God in heaven, you're up,

You're opening your heart, your mouth,

Wild flower, you're doing it,

I can't believe it, it's impossible,

You're the most impossible man I've ever known,

You won't lie down,

You live as if you don't believe in right and wrong,

You're out of your mind,

Your mind feels good, being rid of you,

No right, no wrong,

Just you,

The most impossible man in the world,

Song.

--BRENDAN KENNELLY

P.S.  Consider Kennelly's skillful use of end-stops vs. enjambment to make the poem itself act out the move from being bound to being free.